Ardris DeLeon hit two game-winning shots to help Team Nike to four wns in July. Photo: Robert Cole

Adris (2Hard2Guard) DeLeon was hot, but not in his accustomed manner.

“Everyone on the team knew I was mad,” he said.

The Bronx native was upset with the way he played in Team Nike’s semifinal win over Team Chicago at the World Basketball Festival in Washington D.C. last week and he wasn’t going to let it happen again. The next day, prior to the title game, DeLeon left his hotel room with a basketball tucked under his arm telling coach Maxwell (Bingo) Cole he was going to find a gym.

“I get upstairs and I’m like, ‘Where is he going to work out?’” Cole said.

DeLeon found a local YMCA. He was just hoping to get some shots up, but there was a game going on. They told him to stop shooting because it was disrupting their game. Ticked off, DeLeon put his name down on the list of people to play next, proceeded to put on an impressive display and talk a ton of trash – getting his confidence back.

“I was working on all my moves for the game,” DeLeon, a former star at Eastern Washington, said. “’I do this for a living,’ I start talking”

When it was over, he invited his new friends to the championship game later that night. Many of them came to watch DeLeon lead Team Nike to a thrilling, 72-70 win over Team Los Angeles in the final. He hit a game-winning spinning jumper with three seconds left in the game to seal the crown. It was his second winner of Team Nike’s 4-0 summer, the other coming in Paris. The team’s only loss came in an exhibition game against Team Washington D.C.

“Everybody calls him 2Hard2Guard,” Cole said. “We call him, ‘The Killer,’ because he gets into that mode and he’s a killer.”

With the seconds clicking down, Kenny Satterfield gave the already-hot DeLeon to the ball. He began skipping up the court, got his defender to bite on a shot fake and went soaring in the air looking for a foul. The defender moved out of the way and DeLeon panicked, but let the shot go and watched it drop through the net.

“Everyone went crazy,” he said. “I never heard a crowd so loud in my life.”

It was a thrilling end to Team Nike intended result this summer. Cole praised the play of Satterfield and Quinton (T2) Hosley. It was a challenge to play overseas against new competition and home town referees, the coach said. It was an enjoyable experience being together overseas, but they are happy to be home and return to their streetball teams.

Team Nike will unite two more times in late August to play rival Ooh-Way in a rematch of last year’s Dyckman final and against Team Nike 2, both at Rivington Park in the East Village.

“Everyone want to come at us,” former St. John’s star Anthony Glover said. … “Team Nike 2 is a good team. They have a lot of players, but can they play together? Ooh-Way knows the last time we met them it was a tough loss for them.”

Whatever the outcome, Cole believes Team Nike and its players have established themselves more than enough since they were put together.

“I don’t have nothing to prove no more,” Cole said. “I’ve done everything in New York City. I’ve done it on the road. Win or lose now, I’ve already done it.”